Article updated on July 21, 2017
The mismanagement of evidence has been the downfall of many police departments over the years. Indictments, investigations and incarceration have been the fate of police officers who failed to ensure the proper maintenance and accountability of the evidence and property in their agency’s custody.
The proper maintenance of evidence and/or property involves being able to receive, maintain, account for, retrieve and properly dispose of physical evidence investigating officers recover or receive during their tour of duty.
Several methods can be employed to assist police departments in ensuring property will be where it is supposed to be and in the amount and condition in which it was received.
Let’s assume that you have the wherewithal and the inclination to buy a system. Now what? First you have to establish what kind of evidence you need to manage.
Physical evidence
For the smallest police agencies, property can be managed using Microsoft Excel. The spreadsheet can be as large and detailed as desired or it can consist of five or six columns that allow for the inputting of a case number, property number, shelf location and a brief description of the evidence. The property can be further divided by type, such as currency, drugs, firearms and found property.
The main problem with this approach is that someone has to “invent” your spreadsheet, maintain it and then figure out how it might one day be upgraded. This is a patch, but it’s a patch that will work for a while during lean times.
Obviously, there are some much more elegant systems for managing your evidence than that – one such method of tracking evidence is with bar-coding. There are systems available that allow an officer or crime scene technician to bar-code evidence in the field. With the technology available today it is no longer necessary to transport unpackaged evidence back to the station for packaging and tagging. This method is well-suited to a large agency with the funds and staffing available to support and fully utilize this advancement in evidence handling.
It is highly recommend that any evidence custodian read and understand their state laws regarding evidence storage or disposal. Some states provide for the reselling of certain items of evidence (once it is forfeited – check with your local prosecutor/attorney), such as firearms. Often times found property can be converted to department use. Knowing how to safely dispose of hazardous evidence such as meth is critical.
There are books available that are extremely helpful in establishing department guidelines for the maintenance of evidence. Look for information that describes the various physical storage options available and what measures need to be implemented to protect evidence. Check with the forensic laboratory of your state to see if they have a handbook to help you properly handle and package evidence.
Digital evidence
Digital files are not like digital devices like cell phones and PDAs, which can be placed on a shelf and handled (for the most part) like any other piece of evidence. Here things get a little more complicated, but not so much so that you should be intimidated.
Every time someone lays hands on a piece of digital evidence, that gives the defense an opportunity we don’t want them to have. For example, if you put a DVD on the dashboard of your squad, you may lose all the data on it. At the very minimum you’ve created an opportunity for the defense to poke a hole in your evidence chain. Consequently, the operating instruction for the treatment of digital evidence is: touch it as little as possible.
Although digital evidence is legally alike any other, from a practical standpoint it needs to be treated uniquely. So, when you’re looking at digital evidence management systems, you want to know:
- How the data is transferred from one place to another? Is it via wired connection or secure wireless network?
- How is the evidence chain accounted for in the system? What are the ways that access is logged and permissions granted?
- How the data is stored and what redundancies are in place to prevent data loss if the system fails due to power outage?
There are some complexities and nuances to these systems, so get feedback from your neighboring jurisdictions about what they’re using, whether they’re happy with their system, and what advice they’d give if they were “in your shoes.”
Questions to ask
- How much evidence – both physical and digital – does my agency handle in a typical year?
- How many officers will have to have access to the evidence and property management software I eventually select?
- Do the types of crimes in my jurisdiction warrant the purchase of a separate storage system to keep large numbers of confiscated weapons properly secured?
- Does my agency make substantial seizures of illegal narcotics?
- Is cybercrime on the rise in my area, and if so, what does that mean for my need to retain large amounts of digital data on secure server?
The proper and efficient management of evidence ensures that an agency will not “lose” hundreds or thousands of dollars in currency or pounds of dope, as well as the public’s trust. Failure to provide clear and consistent guidelines for the proper accounting and maintenance of evidence and property leaves an agency and its leaders vulnerable to disaster.
Any other suggestions? Anything we missed in the list above? Leave a comment below or email products@policeone.com with your feedback.
Jan Myers contributed to this report.
